


not one shred of hope (so i built up my own)

by saturnnn



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Gen, No Dialogue, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 20:20:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19933921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saturnnn/pseuds/saturnnn
Summary: He won.(There is a man sitting some distance away from her, his hands clasped and eyes closed as if he is praying to a deity who will not answer, as if he is trying to hold onto the boy who had held onto him. There is a man, and he is important. This is what Nebula knows.)





	not one shred of hope (so i built up my own)

Nebula is on her father’s home planet, and she _hurts_ with every atom that has built and rebuilt her body. Everyone is gone, everyone she has ever invested her limited amount of trust in is floating away in the quiet winds of a dead planet. The only person she has loved in far too long is rotting in the universe’s epicenter of death and sorrow and it is _her fucking fault_. If she hadn’t been caught, if she hadn’t been so weak, if Gamora hadn’t cared for her, if she had just fucking died as a child with the other half of her planet, Thanos wouldn’t have won and Nebula wouldn’t have been left alone again. _If, if, if_.

Yes, it is her fault.

She has been stolen and ripped apart and out back together the wrong way and tortured and had the cruelest things the universe could have thought up happen to her and none of it, _none of it_ , has hurt like staring at empty spaces and thinking of smiles and hugs that feel like forever ago and knowing how easily it could have all been avoided. Nebula didn’t think it was possible, but the universe decided it had one more creative tragedy to top all the rest. There’s always something better, something worse, just something more. It shouldn’t cause pain because she isn’t flesh and blood and machines can’t hurt but it does. It hurts and she is alone.

This is all Nebula knows for a very long time. The winds shift, the sky changes, and she waits to turn to ash surrounded by ruins under the burgundy sky. But it is wrong, and she will not.

No. No, there is another life here. There is a man here and he is important. He must be, has to be, or the sorcerer would not have sacrificed the fate of the universe. The sorcerer was powerful and he had knowledge, Nebula knows this, and people who understand the threats they face do not play games with the universe. The man was wearing something familiar when he fought, a distant foe to Thanos long before anything had changed. A threat her father took the time to know, one he relates to and is impressed by. The iron man is powerful and smart, and he scares the titan who fears nothing. 

There is a man sitting some distance away from her, his hands clasped and eyes closed as if he is praying to a deity who will not answer, as if he is trying to hold onto the boy who had held onto him. There is a man, and he is important. This is what Nebula knows.

And so, she flexes her fingers to check that they have not turned to dust like the rest of them and begins to move forward.

**Author's Note:**

> yep!  
> i started this out with the intentions of writing a prologue ish thing and also just continuing go back to the very beginning because i got some lovely feedback on it but then “what would nebula be thinking immediately after the snap?” turned into this and i thought it wouldn’t really work out. so i did a bit of editing and posted  
> sidenote: i wrote and posted this on my broken phone so if the format or something is super weird please tell me! 
> 
> my lifeblood is comments and i would Really appreciate if u did a quick one, i know there’s not much to say about a short bad oneshot but just a “nice” adds ten years to my life


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